The Church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, Rome - black chalk, pen and two shades of brown ink, a small central blank section introduced to the right of the church façade
This drawing is closely related to Aview in Rome, an oil on canvas, dated 1632, now in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 1; Inv. 1319; M. Roethlisberger, 1979, op. cit., no. 214) although the composition differs in a few respects. Most importantly the Church of Trinità dei Monti is represented further away in the canvas which also shows the Palazzo Zuccari on the right, omitted on the present drawing. The right half of the picture, with a temple and a statue of Apollo, is imaginary.
Boats on a shore (recto); Study of a figure (verso) - black chalk, pen and brown and black ink, brown and grey wash (recto); pen and brown ink, red chalk (verso)
This drawing was probably made from life, circa 1638-40, in the harbour of Ripa Grande on the right bank of the Tiber, facing Mount Aventine, a favourite spot for the landscapists of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries. On theverso Claude traced the motives of the two boats, as he did on quite a few drawings from the same period (M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain, The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, nos. 201, 208, 305, 307, 422 and 482).
Leprince trained in the studio of François Boucher and this combined with his own abundant artistic talent, lead him into a successful artistic career in Paris. However, in 1758, probably due to his own unhappy marriage, Leprince fled to Russia, remaining there until 1764. In addition to a number of court and society commissions, he made a large number of costume and landscape studies in the Russian hinterland, which were to form the basis of his highly fashionable output on his return to France.
